Norse Language Game

Introduction

This kenning haiku is called the Norse Language Game because it uses Norse kennings to illuminate the meaning of the term "language".

The HelloWorldGame was initially intended to be the introductory kenning haiku. However, it became too elaborate for that, and a new introductory game was needed. The basics for this game were sketched out in about half an hour with actual Norse kennings drawn from less than 25 pages of the Younger Edda. You can see the KenningTree?, or outline of the game, in the following diagram:

Term 1: language

Quotation

The keen wind-steed-[ship]taker [sea farer, Earl Hakon] lures under himself [wins] with the true language of swords [battle] the pine-haired deserted wife of Third [Odin; his deserted wife is Iord, earth, i.e. the land of Norway].

Equation

Explication

Every kenning game has its own flavour. Using genuine medieval Norse kennings, as opposed to kennings implicit in world culture (compare the HelloWorldGame), makes this game Viking-flavoured.

When using actual Norse kennings, violent imagery is hard to avoid. In this case, not only does the primary kenning equate language with battle, but, unfortunately, the larger context refers to the conquest of Norway as the rape of a woman. ("Lures under himself" might refer to seduction, but in the context of battle, rape is clearly implied.)

The term "tongues" is only implicit in the kenning "battle is the language of swords". (The next two kennings are explicit, rather than derived indirectly.) "Words" is another possibility for the missing fourth term of the kenning analogy, but "tongue" is a synonym for "language" in English and other languages, and I suggest that if swords are battle-tongues, then their words are thrusts and parries.

Visualisation

Imagine swords extending from speakers' mouths and clashing in swordplay. This is language.

Term 2: tongue

Quotation

You must decide about kindly gifts, since about High kin [= Hakon] Son's seed [the mead of poetry] grows on our word-meadow [tongue].

Equation

Explication

"Card" was chosen as the missing term in the kenning analogy, the equivalent to iron, because not only is card a material, as iron is, but "card", in the singular -- "a card" -- is an implement with which one plays a game, as "an iron" ("a big iron on his hip") is a weapon with which one fights a battle. An iron is made of iron, and a card is made of card.

"Iron-game" for "battle" is another explicit kenning.

Visualisation

Imagine a game played with playing cards that are made of iron, with razor-sharp edges. Players whirl these at one another like shurikens. This is battle.

Conclusion

Quotation

The avern is not, as I had assumed, merely a viper-toothed mace. Its leaves can be detached by twisting them between the thumb and forefinger in such a way that the hand does not contact the edges or the point. The leaf is then in effect a handleless blade, envenomed and razor-sharp, ready to throw. The fighter holds the plant in his left hand by the base of the stem and plucks the lower leaves to throw with his right. Agia cautioned me, however, to keep my own plant out of my opponent's reach, since as the leaves are removed an area of bare stem appears, and this he might grasp and use to wrest my plant from me.

When I flourished the second plant and practiced striking out with it and picking and throwing the leaves, I found that my own avern was likely to be almost as great a danger to me as the Septentrion's. If I held it near me, there was a grave danger of pricking my arm or chest with the long lower leaves; and the flower with its swirling pattern held my gaze whenever I glanced down to tear off a leaf, and with the dry lust of death sought to draw me to it. All this seemed unpleasant enough; but when I had learned to keep my eyes away from the half-closed blossom, I reflected that my opponent would be exposed to the same dangers.

Throwing the leaves was easier than I had supposed. Their surfaces were glossy, like the leaves of many of the plants I had seen in the Jungle Garden, so that they left the fingers readily, and they were heavy enough to fly far and true. They could be thrown point-foremost like any knife, or made to spin in flight to cut down anything in their path with their deadly edges.

--Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer, 1980, Chapter XXIV, "The Flower of Dissolution"

Hanafuda, sometimes called "War of Flowers", is a Japanese card game system.

Equation

Explication

The use of flowers as weapons is reminiscent of the fantasy of Jorge Luis Borges. Borges was obsessed with language, and Gene Wolfe is obsessed with Borges. Thus, it's appropriate that flowery combat is an metaphor for language in this game, even though it is probably not what Wolfe intended.

Note that the quotation in this section uses graphic elements and hypertext links. Not all quotations need to be textual; even audio, video, and interactive quotations are possible.

Visualisation

Imagine swords extending from speakers' mouths and clashing in swordplay. This is language.

Imagine a broad pink meadow, covered with white tufts that float away in the wind like dandelion seeds. This is a tongue.

Imagine a game played with playing cards that are made of iron, with razor-sharp edges. Players whirl these at one another like shurikens. This is battle.

Imagine two broad pink meadows on a hill. Each meadow shoots razor-sharp, shuriken-like iron playing cards depicting flowers at the other. This is language.